13.4km (8.4miles) Difficulty 3/10.
A waddle through the ancient woodland of Epping Forest to work off those free-range sprouts and the ‘festive’ nut roast. The forest is renowned for its ancient pollarded trees, primarily oak,
beech and hornbeam, which support a wealth of rare insects and fungi. The afternoon takes you through open countryside with good views around Copped Hall Park.
Transport
The walk starts from Loughton Underground Station at 10.30am. Meet outside near the ticket gates.
Loughton and Epping are both in Travel Zone 6 on the Central Line. Trains are frequent. It takes about 40 minutes to travel from Oxford Circus to Loughton. Use the TfL journey planner to calculate your journey time from other stations. There is car-parking at both Loughton and Epping underground stations.
Lunch
It being Xmas, service may not be as expected so bring picnic items just in case.
You first reach High Beach Visitor Centre where there is a refreshments kiosk (cash-only), toilets, café and the Kings Oak pub (0208 508 5000). There are also picnic benches nearby.
The Horseshoes pub (01992 712745 ) in Copthall Green is better placed, with friendly service and good food. Booking advised. Nearby, the entrance gate to St Thomas’ Church leads to a pleasant grassy area with wooden benches suitable for a picnic.
Tea
The recommended tea stop is the Verde Café, 88 High Street, Epping (01992 571476). It closes at 4pm on a Sunday. Otherwise, there are pubs, cafes and restaurants in Epping High Street.
Walk Directions here
You can shorten the walk to about 5 miles by staying on the 3 Forest Way between paragraphs 7 and 30. Map or GPS advised for forest section.
The 'right fork/horseshoe post' is no longer visible at paragraph 4. Instead, turn right at the crosspaths.
t=swc.197
3 comments:
Intend going👍
n=3 of us on this one, including a newcomer both to SWC and the UK, equipped with impressive boots that were less pristine at the end of their baptism of mud than they had been at the start.
Though the walk poster was not among us, his description of The Horsehoes in Copthall Green as having "friendly service and good food" was spot on; well above average in both dimensions.
A branch of Costa is as much as Epping's High Street was ever likely to provide for tea on a Boxing Day Sunday. The detour up the hill to that, and a couple of others that were not quite so intentional, had us clock up just over 10 miles.
As the train started back to London, so did the rain, though we have been walking through a w=murky_low_cloud for much of the day.
Postscript: Google reports the recommended tea stop, Verde Cafe, as permanently closed.
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